


What Happens Later

by SordidSalvatore, ThatSlayer



Series: Welcome to Lebanon [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Dalaric, Drabble, F/M, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, M/M, Multiple Crossovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 09:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2263920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SordidSalvatore/pseuds/SordidSalvatore, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatSlayer/pseuds/ThatSlayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damon's worried about Alaric growing old and he allows it to take over his thoughts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Happens Later

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pleasebekidding](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasebekidding/gifts).



> Inspired by concepts in a multifandom tumblr roleplay verse. This is a test to see if a few authors can write somewhat decent fics and drabbles together. Hopefully more of this style to come!

_Okay_ , so Damon’s not really reliable with dates and years. So _what_? The big things. They stand out to him and, _hello_ , important stuff is important, okay? But other stuff… meh. He gets his wires crossed. Loses decades somewhere in the mess of other decades, misplaces years and condenses a person’s entire life span down to a shared kiss on a sweet, violet morning or a messy argument they once had with him. Out of sight, out of mind. He moves on at his crawl with reality growing up without Damon Salvatore and it never lights on him that Wendy’s grown old, that she doesn’t remember how to fly. And, frankly, he doesn’t understand _why_.  


 

> _That was in 1983? Says who?_  
>   
>  _The person I once knew? I’ll just find them and make nice, like I’ve always done. What do you mean I can’t? What do you mean they’re **gone**? _  
> 

What’s twenty years inside the last century?  
  
But this is now, and this is Alaric. And Damon can feel age creeping. Crouched on the ceiling over their bed, riding between them in the car, sitting with them at the breakfast table when Alaric forgets a phone number he wouldn’t have forgotten last year. The salt that peppers Ric’s beard. The way he can’t stave off sleep anymore when it hits him. He’s still a young man, but Damon’s quietly terrified.  
  
Ric was gone. In fact, he has a habit of dying. It’s, like, his favorite thing to do. Ever. And they just found each other again. They just started to hold each other, they just started admit it all. Alright, Damon’s not sure if ‘just started’ is the case, but that’s what it feels like and, didn’t we mention he’s not reliable with dates?  
  
But how long doesn’t matter because they’re together, now. They’ve said the L word, they share their lives. Their bed. They fight together. And, okay, it’s selfish. Alright? Happy? But what happens to Damon when Ric’s gone? He knows what happens, that’s the problem. He’ll mourn, plagued by sweet and fading memories of the first person to really love him for who he was. Of kind eyes, crinkled brow, soft lips and the weight of Ric’s body against his in the morning will be forever replaced by the heavy ache of something that’s missing, That will always be missing.  
  
And then, nothing. And then Damon will forget, Ric will become a figment of summers in a car he doesn’t own anymore, a house he never visits. Banished to the corner of Damon’s mind with the countless faces he can no longer recall while leaving only a ghost of loss that can’t quite be placed in the mind of the eternally young.  
  
By the time he thinks about Alaric again, the Men of Letters bunker will probably be dust under the top soil, the Lebanon Hellmouth being well and truly closed. It will flood back on him, every memory hitting him at once the way they always do when they come back. But he can’t go find Ric, he can’t make nice.  
  
So he’ll talk to the wall, because _that’s_ healthy. He’ll shoot the shit, tell Ric about the amazing things he’s done, the amazing places he’s been and how the world’s changed in the last two centuries or more since the last time they were face to face. Elena’s alright, she’s a survivor. Stefan, Caroline. The Winchesters have been gone longer than Damon ever knew them, but there are enduring legends of the hunters and their mates. Of Buffy, of Faith, the nightmares they still brought to everything that lived in the dark, long after they were gone. Castiel’s still around, or so they say. There were other people, probably. But, eh. Their names are just out of his reach. Their faces… and struggling to remember just gives him a headache so he’ll chuckle it away, keep talking to his memories like he can sweet talk them tangible.  
  
It’s too far away. He’s here now. Ric’s here now. Dean runs his mouth at breakfast, Ric runs his mouth right back but his eyes are on Damon’s and Damon’s on his. A smirk, small, kind across the table. Ric’s fingertips graze Damon’s knuckles but the argument continues. It’s good. Real, present. And he wants to drink it in, remember every touch and the sound Ric’s voice. But there’s only so much room in an immortal mind and Damon forgets as much as he learns. Old memories replaced by new ones on a daily basis.  
  
If he were really, really honest with himself he’d admit that he wants to remember them all. Cas pushing coffee at Dean, timidly hoping to diffuse the argument. Buffy trading Damon and Willow smirky brows when the fight gets juvenile. Giles mindlessly cleaning his glasses. Stefan rolling his eyes as he, Xander and Faith tumble in after a long night and Sam making room for Faith at the end of the table, not missing a beat of the bitchfest because Dean’s truly fucking wrong. He wants this memory. He _wants_ it.


End file.
